Quotes About Responsibility

If you do well at anything, you gotta pay up to all the people who did worse. On the other hand, if you do badly, life makes you pay a shit tax, too. Everybody pays something.

The peasants knew that a spoiled son did more harm to a family than a dead one, and they kept themselves from indulging him too much.

I'll take care of myself and my people. You think I'd trust my life to a bunch of politicians? The people in charge don't know anything. And the ones who do don't care.

All these people - both the Japanese and the Koreans - are fucked because they keep thinking about the group. But here's the truth: There's no such thing as a benevolent leader.

Girls think they'll have the upper hand because these kinds of men seem so pliable, when in fact, the girls are the ones who end up paying bitterly for their mistakes. The Lord forgives, but the world does not forgive.

there is a tax, you know, on success." "Huh?" "If you do well at anything, you gotta pay up to all the people who did worse. On the other hand, if you do badly, life makes you pay a shit tax, too. Everybody pays something.

The penalties incurred for the mistakes you made had to be paid out in full to the members of your family

you do well at anything, you gotta pay up to all the people who did worse. On the other hand, if you do badly, life makes you pay a shit tax, too. Everybody pays something.

The penalties incurred for the mistakes you made had to be paid out in full to the members of your family. But she didn't believe that she could ever discharge these sums.

For a woman, the man you marry will determine the quality of your life completely.

That was the whole point of money, wasn't it, to be able to get your kid whatever he needed?

Mozasu knew he was becoming one of the bad Koreans. Police officers often arrested Koreans for stealing or home brewing. Every week, someone on his street got in trouble with the police.

Yoseb was not wrong, and she could not take this back.

If the pastor doesn't give you money for the household, earn something and put aside savings for emergencies. Spend what you need but just throw even a few coins into a tin and forget that you have it. A woman should always have something put by.

Hoonie used to listen carefully to all the men who brought him news, and he would nod, exhale resolutely, and then get up to take care of the chores. "No matter," he would say, "no matter." Whether China capitulated or avenged itself, the weeds would have to be pulled from the vegetable garden, rope sandals would need to be woven if they were to have shoes, and the thieves who tried often to steal their few chickens had to be kept away.

Nori was not a bad person. It was just that she felt like she had no clear sense of him after nineteen years of marriage, and she doubted that she ever would. He didn't seem to need her except to be a wife in name and a mother to his children. For Nori, this was enough.

The big secret that he kept from his mother, aunt, and even his beloved uncle was that Noa did not believe in God anymore. God had allowed his gentle, kindhearted father to go to jail even though he had done nothing wrong. For two years, God had not answered Noa's prayers, though his father had promised him that God listens very carefully to the prayers of children.

fight and end up as a martyr. Protesting was for young men without families.

At the crowded bar, men were drinking and making jokes, but there hadn't been a soul in that squalid room—smelling of burnt dried squid and alcohol—who wasn't worried about money and facing the terror of how he was supposed to take care of his family in this strange and difficult land.

I know you didn't want us. My brothers told me, and I told them they were wrong even though I knew they weren't. I clung to you because I wasn't going to let you just leave what you started. How can you tell me how hard it is to have children? You haven't even tried to be a mother. What right do you have? What makes you a mother?

Hansu smiled. "You are almost seventeen. I'm thirty-four. I am exactly twice your age. I am going to be your elder brother and your friend. Hansu-oppa. Would you like that?

Hansu did not believe that man was designed to have sex with only one woman; marriage was unnatural to him, but he would never abandon a woman who had borne him children.

Yoseb would not allow Sunja to accept any money from Hansu for Noa's schooling.

I'll take care of myself and my people. You think I'd trust my life to a bunch of politicians? The people in charge don't know anything. And the ones who do don't care." Sunja